Fragmented search with Zillow and Trulia

December 13, 2007

Searching for homes in the Charlottesville (or any area) is easier than ever – and more confusing and fragmented. Even the Wall Street Journal thinks so (albeit that wasn’t the intent of the article). Hopefully consumers don’t get drawn into the false sense of completeness that these sites offer. The local MLS, despite its clunky interface and consumer tools, offers the most comprehensive search available.

The tools Trulia and Zillow provide and the interfaces they offer consumers (and Realtors) should be forcing Realtor.com and local MLS’ to innovate and create better user experiences.Â Â I’m curious to learn what Move.com is up to.

For starters, users can enter a city, town or ZIP Code and see a listing of every home for sale, sortable by price, address, number of bedrooms or bathrooms, broker or type of home (single-family or multi-family). They can also narrow the search by establishing parameters for location, size and property type. (bolding mine)

For the 22901 zip code, one of the primary zip codes for Charlottesville:

With Trulia, I have come across several old listings. They don’t do a good job of flushing out the old; that’s why they have so many.

One more Trulia beef: Realtors are able to put “Charlottesville 22901” for the address when the actual location is Lake Monticello. It’s good marketing/dishonesty on the agent’s part, but Trulia should just require the ZIP code and the problem would be solved.

When a property listings site has more listings than the MLS, possible explanations might include:
1. The site supports FSBOs and other types of listings that do not commonly appear in the MLS.
2. The site supports listings from more than one MLS whose geographic coverages might overlap.
3. The site, or one or more of its data sources, are not removing old/sold listings over time.
I’m sure there are more, but you get the idea.

One sadly common misconception is that an MLS necessarily has an infallably complete list of all properties for sale in its area. While the local MLS is often the closest to such a thing available, that’s not quite the same.

One sadly common misconception is that an MLS necessarily has an infallably complete list of all properties for sale in its area. While the local MLS is often the closest to such a thing available, that’s not quite the same.

So true. It’s surprising that so many people don’t get that the local MLS, has probably about 85% of local listings.

Yet another facet of the argument for using Buyer-Broker Agreements from start.

[…] found a home she was interested in, she would call the agent to go see it. Real estate search is fragmented, and it’s likely to be that way for a while. I’m frustrated, too. There is no credible […]

[…] to how to search for a home in Charlottesville, read this post written by one of my savvy clients.- Real estate search is just as fragmented in 2012 as it was in 2007. – Knowing this, would you trust Zillow? – And no, Zillow’s zestimates aren’t accurate […]

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About Jim Duncan

I am a Realtor/Broker/Partner with Nest Realty in Charlottesville, Virginia. The goal of this site/blog remains unchanged in the nearly 10 years since its founding – to provide clear, coherent and unbiased analysis of the Charlottesville area real estate market.